"And I think what one of the things this incident shows is just how - I mean, you could say desperate, but certainly eager - the CIA is for this kind of intelligence. He was promising kind of the big haul. He was going to give the location or at least give good intelligence about perhaps the number two operative in al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri. So the CIA brought its number two official from Kabul all the way to Khost for the meeting... I mean, [the drone bombing program is] nothing short of a war. It's a campaign going on, a military, quasi-military campaign that the CIA is carrying out and which the CIA is quite proud of, actually. They think that this is kind of the most effective thing that the U.S. government has right now to deal with al-Qaida."
- M Mazzetti, NYT nat. security correspondent
"If you have different personalities down range, everybody's worried about their rice bowls, and the next thing you know you have this kind of problem. People aren't talking to each other... I don't think we have any choice [that the CIA has to become a stronger paramilitary entity]. I do think we need to get a lot better at it. I don't think we have completed the evolution from a Cold War entity to what we need... I think it's going to take a consensus between the Congress and the president to really say we got to make some fundamental changes... We're still essentially using the same machine we had on September 10th, 2001."
- C Faddis, CIA
--------
Maybe you heard about the "double agent" Jordanian doctor who killed 6 CIA employees and a Jordanian Intel officer at a forward operating base in Afghanistan. Agents were supposedly trying to turn him into an asset, because he claimed to have knowledge of the location of a top Al Qaeda figure. But instead, he detonated a suicide vest during his debriefing, after he was invited to the base and not frisked. So instead of finding Zawahiri, we lost decades of cumulative intelligence expertise and called our entire human intel apparatus in that country into question. The Jordanian used to work in Palestinian refugee camps, and probably witnessed a lot of the suffering caused by the Arab-Israeli conflicts. He was a well-known anti-Western Islamic blogger too, but Jordanian Intel and the CIA seemed to think they had "de-radicalized" him, and he continued to blog just to maintain appearances.
Our new War on Terror is a bizarre chapter in the history of combat, because literally we have the conventional armed forces, private mercenaries, and the CIA all waging parallel wars and conducting independent operations in the same theater of battle. And in some cases, maybe the parties are not fully cooperating or even aware of the other's actions, but in fact are competing for targets/intel and unintentionally undermining overall strategy. Maybe you heard about reports of Blackwater Worldwide employees working with the CIA on raids in Iraq, or in some cases working on their own (under who's orders?), which has angered many in DC. Actually no different than the insurgents, the mercenaries were not trained by our government and have no legal accountability. Their only legitimacy is a contract from Baghdad (that we forced them to sign) permitting them to do business in-country until a given expiration date. Yet they are highly paid, heavily armed, and (were) pursuing high-value targets in Iraq. Since Afghanistan is even more Wild West (they don't even have a single km of railroad), I can only imagine what unauthorized activities may go unmonitored. Though due to the terrain and lack of infrastructure, aerial drones seem to be the tool of choice.
I guess a lot of the War on Terror is assassinations and intel gathering (and torture), so of course the CIA should play a prominent role, but they are also used to working without rules and oversight. They have already received some bad publicity over rendition flights, Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo, but they have probably also gathered intel (by what means, we may never know) that helped prevent some attacks on the West. Prior to our full invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, the CIA and special ops forces did heavily pursue Al Qaeda at the end of 2001 and decimate much of Osama's core members (they may have even wounded him at Tora Bora). But political hesitation and territorial disputes by Bush's cabinet stalled their advance and allowed the Al Qaeda survivors to escape to Pakistan.
Also the CIA may not have the best reputation in Afghanistan due to the events at the end of the Soviet occupation. While the CIA unofficially armed and trained the Mujahadeen, through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, to improve their insurgent capabilities (as depicted in "Charlie Wilson's War", and see my previous posting: http://worldaffairs-manwnoname.blogspot.com/2008/05/charlie-wilsons-war-and-bs-revisionist.html), after the Soviet withdrawal the US let the nation deteriorate into civil war and Islamic fundamentalism. Stemming from Vietnam, I think the US defense establishment is very sensitive about being labeled as people who abandon their friends. But the perception in Afghanistan was that the CIA was only interested in using the Muslims to spill blood fighting the rival Soviets, and afterward the US couldn't care less about their problems.
I have no doubt that many in the CIA are dedicated patriots with great talent for their difficult job, and they have saved American lives over the years. But they also have that reputation (deservedly in some cases) of just using people to accomplish their narrow objectives. As depicted in films like "Spy Game", "Syriana", and "Body of Lies", the CIA are arrogant, cocksure, scheming, pathologically ambitious, and uncaring. Flesh and blood people become expendable "assets", little respect is shown to allies, pissing contests abound, and the mission always comes first despite what broken laws or collateral damage may ensue. Obviously Hollywood's depiction is sensational, but also plays out in reality: the Iran-Contra scandal, and more recently Extraordinary Rendition, and just last year 2 high-level employees were dismissed for a sex scandal and corruption.
If many Americans are already suspicious of the CIA after Watergate and whatnot, just imagine how the rest of the world, and specifically parts of the Muslim world caught in our wars, feel about the CIA. I know it is a dirty job and the CIA works with lying, treacherous scumbags. You use me and I use you. I think we all accept that as part of the spy game, but then they shouldn't expect locals to go out of their way to help us, especially when helping us could be viewed as a betrayal of their faith and heritage. They know that we don't give a hoot about them, and when they are no longer useful to us, we will cut them loose (like all the Iraqi translators who risked their lives and their families to help us, and we don't even compensate their next of kin with money or visas after they are killed). Potential assets and their affiliates also know that we are very interested in them, which may leave us vulnerable as we saw in Afghanistan. Many foreign intelligence agencies that we work with also probably know that the CIA looks down on them and won't share much useful information. In a more public example, our close ally Italy has issued warrants for the arrests of several CIA operatives relating to the kidnapping of an Islamic cleric in Italy. Though there probably was a secret NATO agreement to permit CIA agents to "do their thing" in Europe, Italian laws were broken. Everyone's a liar and there is no trust; actually it's a miracle that anyone can get reliable human intel these days. Maybe the CIA officers who were killed by the Jordanian bomber were so ambitious to get credit for assassinating some Al Qaeda big shot, that they ignored their better judgment and suspicions about him. Obviously they violated base security protocol to allow the bomber to do such damage, and we may never know what really happened.
But tragic events such as this, or the public burning of private security guards in Iraq a few years ago, should show that occupied peoples do not approve of some of our methods. I would hope that the Cold War taught us that it's wrong for global powers to meddle in Third World nations and treat their people like chess pawns in a high-stakes power game. True alliances and partnerships are built on honesty and respect. That is why I am dubious of our uniquely intimate alliance with Israel, since Israel doesn't seem to heed our concerns very often (calls to end heavy shelling in Gaza or settlement building in the Occupied Territories often go ignored), and Mossad agents are occasionally caught spying in the US. If that is how Israel treats its closest friend, I wouldn't want to be her enemy. But getting back to the CIA in the War on Terror, I know a lot of the challenges they face are unprecedented. So maybe new approaches and more sensitive techniques are appropriate, instead of the same old macho spycraft. Fortunately much of our intel is gathered electronically, thereby reducing the human evil factor. I know CIA agents can't coddle terrorists and take them to tablecloth dinners (well, the Algiers station chief dismissed over his sex scandal often took assets to strip shows to turn them), but we have to move beyond turf wars and waterboarding. Many government agencies resist change or outside advice, and I think the CIA takes it to another level. After almost a decade since 9/11, they and the military still have a recruiting shortage of Arabic speakers and Mideast experts.
Expanding these points to the larger War on Terror, it is clear that there is a sea change. Domestic law enforcement apprehended more suspected terrorists (and foiled potential attacks) in 2009 than the previous 4 years combined. This coincides with increased covert drone attacks and raids on the Pakistani border that claimed to kill Al Qaeda leaders. In fact, under Obama we have killed more alleged Qaeda leaders than during Bush's last 3 years in office. So Al Qaeda is hurt badly, getting desperate, and forced to adapt. They are stepping up their plans to attack the West, and since all failed, we can only assume that they were more rushed and frantic with their planning. But another new development is that the alleged attackers were mostly non-Arabs from Al Qaeda affiliate groups. They visited Somalia or Yemen. So Al Qaeda rebuilt after 9/11 and gained enough strength to destabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent years. But now they are getting hit harder, and forced to go underground again. But they are sending their people to friendly organizations in other parts of the world under less US scrutiny. And that seems to be where this new breed of attacker is emerging from. This illustrates the problem with counter-terrorism and unconventional war in this globalized world. We might smash the vase, but the fragments of porcelain spread everywhere and slip through our fingers. So now we have a bigger mess on our hands. Maybe it was better when Al Qaeda was more complacent and contained in the Pakistan border areas. Just like our mistake with Saddam and Iraq, sometimes it's better to tolerate a monster in a cage, then try to completely destroy that monster and create dozens of new ones.
" 'In essence, these [Al Qaeda] operatives are being sent out as force multipliers, to plus up or strengthen or to enhance the capabilities of local and region allies,' says [Georgetown Univ. security expert B Hoffman]. He believes they are attempting to 'overwhelm the U.S. and other enemies with a strategy that amounts to death by 1,000 cuts.' "
-NPR
So even though we lucked out on Christmas, we can't be lucky forever. Maybe we should rethink our tactics, because a minimal, contained, centralized terror threat, while worse than an absence of terrorism, is much better than a dispersed, multiplying terror threat.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122436089
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122319659
http://www.defpro.com/news/details/12317/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121004700.html?wprss=rss_politics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031904134.html
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/12/worldupdates/2010-01-12T023641Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-453165-1&sec=Worldupdates
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6732897.stm
